Saturday, April 19, 2014

If you live within reach of New York City, don't miss the uPublishU self-publishing conference taking place Saturday, May 31 2014 at the Javits Center between 9am and 4pm.

40 speakers will share their smarts to help indie authors take their publishing to the next the level. Register before May 15 for $115 and save $100 off of the regular $215 registration fee. You'll find the registration link on the uPublishU landing page.

Smashwords will be there in force as a sponsor so I hope you can make it. We'll also have a table so please stop by and say hello.

The conference this year promises to be their best yet. They've broken the sessions into three concurrent tracks so you can choose the topics that best meet your goals and objectives. The three tracks include Bringing Your First Book to Market, Tools & Marketing Mania, and Publishing at the Next Level.

Learn how to make your book launch more successfully with ebook preorders. Preorders represent one of the most exciting new book launch tools for self-published ebook authors. In this session, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker will help unlock the secrets to preorder success. He’ll describe how preorders work, and will teach authors how to plan, stage and execute a successful preorder strategy. Using Mark’s methods, multiple Smashwords authors have hit the retailer bestseller lists. The recommended preorder strategies are grounded in professional publishing best practices that will help make any ebook launch more successful. Mark will share recent case study examples of how indie authors have used preorders to increase sales rank, sales and visibility.

Learn how to reach more readers at Apple' iBooks! iBooks is the world's second largest ebook retailer, and operates in 51 countries. In this session, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker will teach authors how to stand out in this fast-growing, indie-friendly ebook store where self-published titles regularly top the charts. Mark will teach attendees how books are merchandised at Apple, how ebook merchandising works, how merchandisers select titles for promotion, and what authors can do to maximize their odds of merchandising love. Although the session will focus on iBooks, the lessons learned are universal. Learn how to make your books stand out at every retailer.

uPublishU is one of several sister conferences taking place during BEA, North America's largest book conference. BEA is one of my favorite conferences, and it's been cool to see how self publishing is becoming a bigger piece of each year's conference.

4 comments:

Your presentations sound interesting, Mark, especially the one about maximizing sales on Apple. I've noticed that my books sell much better through some retailers than others; if there are things we authors can do to improve sales through particular retailers, that would be valuable information. Are you planning to make the substance of your presentations available to those who can't make it to the conference in May? That would be wonderful.

I'm an exhibiting author at BEA, and have also signed up for UPublishU. There are several talks I absolutely don't want to miss, but will also be doing two signings during the day on Saturday. I can't find a contact email to ask this, so I figure you're the man who knows it all ;) Is it okay if we sort of come and go to the sessions as we can? We def would love to be there for the whole day, but it's just not possible. Let me know, please. And btw, your talks are two of my can't miss ones- we're so looking forward to meeting you!